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I know it doesn't really belong in this thread here, but I have one question in regards of the technical skills that someone needs to work in the gaming industry. Most of my knowledge is purely "traditional", even though I have a Wacom Intuos and even programms like Maja and PS. My question is; what should I be able to do, in order to get a job somewhere in the industry? Are there some "test exercises", so I could work in the right direction?
Drawing and painting was always a huge hobby in my life, but I really have the feeling that I should change my approach, since I don't wanna just work for myself forever. I can draw and paint, but I can't really do anything with that craft. I'm just not getting anywhere. I'm grateful for every real advice in this regard.
Thanx in advance.

pick a game genre, decide what your skillset could enhance the most, atmosphere, animation, detail, terrain, etc. and build from there, just focus on your strengths.

You are right there, but that wasn't exactly what I wanted to know, but maybe I didn't make myself very clear, sorry if so. I know in which department/-s I'd like to work, my biggest problem however is, that I don't know what they want to see from me. My strengths are drawing humans, clothing and weapons, so I think, that something that has to do with character design, or promotional art would be the right thing. I have no experience in animation and just a bare minimum in terms of 3D modelling; however, those(anim./modelling) aren't things, that I could see myself doing professionally anyways. Aside from character design I could imagine to work on any kind of 2D stuff, since illustration is what I'm most comfortable with.
I'd just like to get some kind of task, so I could proof myself in that regard, or to see where I am atm and what I have to do in order to get where I could be useful.

You are right there, but that wasn't exactly what I wanted to know, but maybe I didn't make myself very clear, sorry if so. I know in which department/-s I'd like to work, my biggest problem however is, that I don't know what they want to see from me. My strengths are drawing humans, clothing and weapons, so I think, that something that has to do with character design, or promotional art would be the right thing. I have no experience in animation and just a bare minimum in terms of 3D modelling; however, those(anim./modelling) aren't things, that I could see myself doing professionally anyways. Aside from character design I could imagine to work on any kind of 2D stuff, since illustration is what I'm most comfortable with.
I'd just like to get some kind of task, so I could proof myself in that regard, or to see where I am atm and what I have to do in order to get where I could be useful.

I would work on three things:
Implement your artwork into a game engine of some sort (Unity, UDK, etc). This would demonstrate that you are not afraid of the "technical" side of things. You could do this by designing and implementing some sort of User Interface and perhaps a comic-book style story. This would need an element of scripting, but not much and would show you are willing to "talk to the dark side".
Take a game and work to an imaginary brief for a poster campaign (let's say). Produce the artwork and accurately measure how long it took you. Alternatively, produce an imaginary "pitch document" for a game. This would entail you looking into gameplay mechanics, narrative, character design, level design, etc. Research what should be in such a document.
In order to achieve the above, plan it in advance and provide documentation that you have stuck to your plan, modified it for good reason, and show progression (It doesn't necessarily have to be a Gantt chart!). Try and work out how long industry should pay you to make, say, a high detail, 2D representation of a primary game character for print. Evaluation, time estimation and planning is quite key. Another challenge if you want one would be to estimate how long it would take you to put together a "match attax" card for a single player from scratch (they are football trading cards) in the same style as the original but without recourse to internet based material.
/Dextrus

@ Dextrus
Thanks for your helpful post :). Right now I'm doing basically just what you've wrote(parts of it). I really understand now, that there's just no way to work fully "traditionally" and make a living off of it, at least not with my pace and style. And it wouldn't fit to anything else in the industry either; I really can't remember when I saw the last traditionally painted cover on a magazine; let alone a gaming mag, or production drawings.
I have a Wacom and I'll see how fast I can work with it and how good the quality of the final product will be. I tried digital painting/coloring a couple times, but never went the full nine yards with it. This time I really want to see what I can get out of that thing. My first fully fleshed out work in this regard will be a Proxy pin-up. For further info look in the off-topic section under "Portrait from A-Z".
Thanks again Dextrus
Frost